Pros and Cons of 5 years of high school

[Daria]

DS17's education has been significantly disrupted by illness. He is doing much better now, but he and I agree that taking 2 more years before going away to college makes sense.

 

One idea that we are considering is delaying graduation by a year and having him do 2 more years of dual enrollment, basically a senior year and a super senior year. The other option would be to graduate him in June and have him do a year of CC.

 

He attended public school through the end of 9th and returned for 11th, so rebranding 10th as 9th isn't an option, as the transcripts will list grades and dates.

 

We don't live in an area with discounts for dual enrollment.

 

I would love to hear any thought about pros and cons of each choice.

[TwoEdgedSword]

I'm sorry that your son was ill and I'm glad to hear he is improving.You are saying that the local p.s. won't pay for community college?

I think either option is preferable to moving away. I would ask him and of course ask yourself, given he's been ill, where does he see his peer group now, at the h.s. or more at the local c.c. level?

 

If his maturity level is more at the h.s. level, I would do that, but hopefully with some p.s. payment on c.c. tuition.

 

I realize often there is not a big leap in maturity from h.s. to c.c., but the workload at least in theory, should be tougher at the c.c. level, and that should be taken into account too. How geared up is he stress and health wise for a harder workload?

 

One more thing, to consider is possibly there is less social stress to deal with at the h.s. than at the c.c. I'm not positive about this, but it seems that all those cliques tend to fade away after h.s.

 

Best wishes to you as you sort this out.

Edited July 26, 2016 by TwoEdgedSword

[regentrude]

I see no drawbacks of taking an extra year of high school.

If he graduates and then goes to CC, he would be considered a transfer student and not a regular freshman for subsequent application to a four year college. This would not be an issue if he were still enrolled in high school and doing CC classes as dual enrollment.

 

When he is applying to a four year university, I would be up front with the explanation that high school was extended to five years due to medical reasons. I cannot see how anybody would have problems with this.

Edited July 26, 2016 by regentrude

[Daria]

Our PS only pays for Dual Enrollment for students who qualify for Free and Reduced Meals, which we don't.  That isn't a big issue for us, as our local CC is pretty cheap, but I mentioned it since I know that it plays into some family's decisions. They also have a rule that you can't take more than 7 credits a term.  

 

As for maturity, in some ways I'd say he's right on target or even a little more mature than his peers, but he's not as independent.  For example, his illness has caused significant issues with fatigue, and he's still dependent on someone to wake him in the mornings as he'll sleep through any alarm clock.  He's also needed more "helicoptering" around school work, in part because the absences have impacted his schoolwork.  Those are the skills he needs to develop before he leaves.

 

Our local PS is a super high performing "pressure cooker" of a school.  I am not sure that classes at the CC will be more challenging, but he's going to start with just 2 classes in areas of strength.  We'll build slowly from there.  He'll finish the first year with all the requirements to graduate from our local PS completed, so I could easily graduate him in June, or I could announce that our homeschool has higher standards and keep him as D.E..  Our umbrella school will back us either way.  

 

My big question is about the impact  I think ideally he'll go to CC for 2 years, definitely only part time the first year, and then transfer to a 4 year school with the intention of taking 4 years to graduate, with the credits used to lighten his load a little in the first few years.  He likes the idea of coming in as a freshman, living in the freshman dorm and then continuing through with his class and graduating "on time", which is a part of our motivation to think about doing this. However, I want to make sure I'm thinking about this from all angles.   

[Ann.without.an.e]

I would totally take 5 years if he is okay with it.  More dual enrollment credit, more strength to his "resume".  You can just change his transcript so that his 10th grade work is now 9th grade work.  I think it is a great idea.  

[MarkT]

Will he have enough HS credits at the end of four years per your state?

Why not just get the AS or transfer program done at the CC? Since you don't save with DE.

So after 6+ years he has HS and 2 years of college.

[Daria]

Will he have enough HS credits at the end of four years per your state?

Why not just get the AS or transfer program done at the CC? Since you don't save with DE.

So after 6+ years he has HS and 2 years of college.

The degree he wants isn't available as a transfer degree. Most schools, at least the ones that would work for him in other ways, expect all students to go through a 4 year sequence of courses.